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The Fate of the Free World is Up for Grabs

Thursday, October 23, 2008

The day is almost here ladies and gentleman. There is less than two weeks until the United States chooses their new president. While I’m not fond of using the term “Leader of the Free World”, it’s generally accepted that whomever becomes President of the US will be the most influential leader in the Western World.

As it currently stands, the election is essentially up for grabs – anyone’s game. Most of the major news agencies that I’ve seen are currently telling us that Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate, is currently ahead in the opinion polls. At this time, CNN is predicting an Obama winon November 4th. Senator Obama himself is taking a cautious stance and telling supporters not to get too cocky. Two weeks might not seem like much time but a great deal can happen with eleven days to go.

Why has Barack Obama (if the polls are to be believed) started breaking away from John McCain? It’s difficult to say and I’m certainly no expert on American politics, voting trends or the views of Joe Six-Pack, Joe-Plumber or Joe Blow. I saw conflicting headlines today about Sarah Palin. One suggested she was bringing out the Republican vote and the other indicated it was because of her McCain is dropping in popularity. Who are you to believe? Republicans seemed super stoked when she was first announced as McCain’s VP candidate but once she started giving interviews, even strong Republican supporters were turning their backs. Despite standing strong on a number of major Republican issues (abortion, energy, same-sex marriage, etc), people began questioning her fitness to lead when she wasn’t able to come up with the name of a single magazine or a supreme court decision she didn’t agree with.Regular readers will know that I’m no Palin fan. She’s probably a lovely person but her views on pretty much everything are completely opposite to what I stand for. However, it’s not for those reasons that the thought of her possibly becoming president scare the bejeesus out of me. It’s that she’s so incredibly unprepared. This women might become the vice-president of one of the most powerful nations in the world and up until a couple of months ago, she didn’t even have a passport. I suppose that she doesn’t need to travel to … oh … let’s say Russia. … since she can see it from her house. She can just yell across the Bering Straight.

Ok, enough Palin bashing. That wasn’t the direction I had intended to go with this post.

Regardless of whatever the outcome of the election is, I feel change coming. For good or bad, the future’s uncertain. And there’s no guarantee it will be a better, stronger, safer future under either candidate. One thing that is certain? People are fired up to vote. Folks in Miami (like many other locations) waited in line for up to two hours to vote in the advance polls. Some states are estimating that they’re going to have up to 90% voter turnout in this election. A far sight better than our pathetic <60%.

5
comments:

Obama is pulling away because no matter how hard he tries McCain can't run from his years of being a Bush toady. We want change and we're not going to let them steal this election from us like they did in 2000 and 2004.

About Me

I'm Karen, a 40' something single Canuck gal who loves funky socks, football, reading, Coca-Cola, warm cat snuggles, and french fry sandwiches on white bread. I'd also like to take over the world but I just don't have the will power.